


Remember Me, Love

by imitateslife



Category: Anastasia - Flaherty/Ahrens/McNally
Genre: Angst, Character Death, F/M, History is against him, Not A Fix-It, Relationship Study, Requited Unrequited Love, You don't actually think Gleb lives right?, playing with tenses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-13
Updated: 2019-06-13
Packaged: 2020-05-02 11:57:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19198327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imitateslife/pseuds/imitateslife
Summary: As Gleb faces his death, a memory of a bridge, a river, and a kiss from the girl he loves give him hope that something of him will live on.





	Remember Me, Love

The heavy tread of soldiers’ boots filled the hall. Secretaries and pencil pushers stuck their heads out of their offices to watch the procession as armed guards pushed the disgraced General Vaganov towards the back of the building. Gleb did not look at the faces of his colleagues - former colleagues - as he walked, but kept his eyes forward. He did not see the concrete building he’d known so well when he was General Gleb Vaganov, Deputy Commissioner. Instead, he saw a girl and a river a country away.

* * *

 _She walks to stand beside him as he stares at the water. He watches her distorted reflection move and even without a clear picture of her, he relaxes instead of tenses.She touches his hand. Pressure builds behind his eyes._  
  
_“Where will you go?” she asks._

_He looks at her and captures her like a color camera. Her pink lips, half-smiling and her coiffed auburn hair, do not match her shattered, Romanov eyes. Still, this is how he will remember her: beautiful and almost hopeful, looking at him and making him want to stay. He will remember this Anya as fondly as he remembers the frightened street sweeper whose hands are cold in his. She is warm now but he still longs to hold her. Now, he knows he can’t. Daughter of a king, son of revolution - where can he go, but to the gallows? If she is to live - and he wants her to live - he must die. He reaches for her hand and holds it._

_“I think we both know,” he says quietly. “I have a duty.”_

_She squeezes his hand harder and he loves her all the more for it. He wishes he could tell her, but she has a life here and more love than he can offer her. He thinks if she asks him to stay, he just might... But she does not. She only holds tighter to his hand and looks away from him. He follows her gaze to the Seine with blurry eyes._

_“I will think of you for the rest of my days, Anya,” he says quietly._

_They both know those days are numbered. She turns to face him and before he can say anything, she rocks up onto her toes, dragging him down by his tie, and her soft mouth covers his. She has a love waiting for her; he, a firing squad. Their paths will no longer merge, but their tears do as their faces touch. He wants to crumble at her feet, as he did in the manor, but standing here, they are equal, as they have always been._

* * *

 

Forced to kneel, Gleb looked up at his executioners and to Gorlinsky.

“You are every inch your father’s son,” Gorlinsky growled. “We served together, you know. And he was a soft man. Weak. Couldn’t stomach the business of war. Felt _guilty_ about those damn Romanov girls. Seems the apple didn’t fall far from the tree.”

He said more - to Gleb, to the soldiers surrounding him, but Gleb didn’t hear. He heard his heartbeat rising in his ears and he would have sworn he heard Anya’s, too.  He thought of her - hundreds of miles away - and imagined her on the bridge, looking into the water pensively. Her Romanov eyes go wide and water suddenly, like she has just remembered something or someone and feels deep grief. Before she can cry out, her young man touches her shoulder. She startles, laughs, throws her arms around him. As Gleb imagines her walking away from the place they once kissed, he thinks that Anya was never his to keep. But, he was always, always hers to keep locked away in some part of her heart that history books can never touch.

Then he heard the guns.

And then, there was silence.   



End file.
